


Gunpoint

by chronicAngel



Series: Whumptober 2019 [5]
Category: We Need to Talk About Kevin - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Gyms, High School, POV First Person, School Shootings, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 17:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20979953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: It would be somehow less scary, I think, if he was pointing a gun at me.





	Gunpoint

It would be somehow less scary, I think, if he was pointing a gun at me.

My students are all dead or dying, mixed freshmen and sophomores with arrows sticking out of them laying around the gym. Well, I suppose not _all_ of them-- there are only nine kids from my English class here. Greer Ulanov, Denny Corbitt, Jeff Reeves, Laura Woolford, Brian Ferguson, Ziggy Randolph, Miguel Espinoza, Soweto Washington, and Josh Lukronsky. If a diorama of my classroom were placed in front of me, I could point to where each of them sat. Brian sat near the back, kept his head down. Soweto Washington was expecting to skip his junior year and was already asking me if I would be a reference for his college applications. Laura Woolford's mother was more involved with the PTA than anyone else I've ever met. But when any of your students dies, it feels as though you've lost all of them.

Laura is laying on the floor with an arrow through one of her pretty eyes, her curly brown hair wet with her own blood as it pools from her head onto the gym floor. She died immediately. It seems as though Kevin has decided to torment the other students more: Josh is laying on the floor with two arrows through his chest, gurgling and letting out wet coughs. Denny has finally stopped moving, but he didn't bleed out until he ripped the arrow from his own neck. Miguel is trying to drag himself across the gym toward the doors, an arrow right in the middle of his back, trailing blood across the wood flooring, but I already know he will not make it.

Kevin seems just as confident, happily ignoring him to stare down at me with a self-satisfied little smirk. It is as though he is silently trying to tell me, _You were wrong about me. _I don't think I was, though. I've always known there was something wrong with Kevin, but even now, I don't think he is unfixable. I think he is an intelligent young man with a lot of potential, and I think he is a stupid teenager using that intelligence in a horrible way.

I wonder if his mother ever delivered my little message to him. That I was onto him. I wonder if she interpreted it correctly-- if she knew that I was not threatening her son but rather that I simply saw brilliance in him and I wanted him to know that. I have known since our first days of classes together that Kevin does not like praise. Not for himself, nor for anyone else.

He thinks that the color in life should not come from compliments which he would probably say no one really means, or even from hobbies one truly enjoys. I suspect he thinks life should _have_ no color. That no matter how much he complains that everyone's lives have grown monotonous, he likes it that way. It is so clear that he lives without truly enjoying _anything_ and I suppose he must want everyone to live the same way. Except, well, now he's found something that he enjoys, and I suppose in a way he is trying to share it with the world.

"You were such a smart boy," I whisper to him, and for just a second the smirk drops from his face. He just looks... angry, in that moment. Angry with me, or maybe with himself. I don't know if he's really capable of it.

"Bullshit," he spits back. I can't even muster the energy to scold him, or else frown disapprovingly. I know it is what I am supposed to do, as his teacher. Try to teach him even in my last moments. But I have already failed as a teacher-- I failed when that first arrow launched into Jeff Reeves and he crumpled to the ground and the rest of my students started screaming and crying and running around in the panic. Now, I am just tired. Adrenaline and fear have sapped the last of my energy after an already exhausting school day away. "Why don't you say what you _really_ think about me, teach?" He says _teach_ with a condescending sneer.

I want to roll my eyes at him. He is so perfectly playing the part of a child who doesn't care what others think about him. A child who only wants people to speak the truth about each other, even if it means cruelty. I can see, though, that he is just crying out for attention. Crying out for help. From whom, I cannot say, but I know that is what he's doing. "I _am_ saying what I really think of you, Kevin. You're a very bright boy. I know why you've decided to do this and I wish I could have seen it and helped you sooner. I don't know who those silent pleas were for, but I wish--"

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact I actually can't fucking stand first person perspective.


End file.
